As I flipped on the TV this morning, once again the topic was the Congressional hearings into steroid use in professional baseball. Seriously. The war in Iraq, domestic spying, gay rights, and war crimes by the President be damned, there's nothing more important to our country right now than whether or not millionaires playing a kid's game use drugs.

In that spirit, I thought I'd draw up a list of other things Congress could investigate to while away the hours.

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Being libertarian i feel all athletes should be allowed to use all the drugs they want. Think about it... We would see new records set and the lifespan of the evarage sports star would be cut do a quarter of what it is now. That would leave more openings for new athletes to enter into professional sports.

The claim is that baseball, and all the big sports, generate role models that our children will want to emulate. This theory is shot full of holes. Is Congress investigating how many Miss America contestants used Fen-Phen?

The closest that this theory comes to reality is that the big sports create role models that our sons will want to emulate. Even though women's sports have received greater interest in recent decades, and despite the tangible effect of Title IX, the American sport phenom is intrinsically sexist.

So, the first part of the answer to this question (Why is Congress concerned with sports?) is that they are propping up the American masculine tradition. Period. My take is the DADT will long be history before gay men are acceptable in pro sports. Soldiers defend America, but sports stars define what we want our sons to grow up to become.

The second part of the answer is money. Sports is a multi-billion dollar industry, and the success or failure of any American industry of similar dollar size might draw Congressional attention.

Just look at what has happened in the last several decades here in Indianapolis. When I first moved here in the late 70's, we had a new sports venue called Market Square Arena. Market Street ran underneath it, literally, and eventually that posed a serious security problem. But the main development was the building of the RCA Dome, which dwarfed Market Square, and before long Market Square Arena was imploded and demolished. Vacant downtown land exists to this day showing where the arena once stood.

Now, just a few decades later, RCA Dome is obsolete and we are building Lewis Stadium, a gargantuan architectural monstrosity (cost: about one-half billion) that features the requirements of the current time: a solid, retractible roof (not that pansy oversized inflatable condom thing that RCA Dome has) and ... dozens and dozens of box seats that corporate highrollers can drop thousands of dollars per game to sit in.

So, when you have any economic engine that pulls in that much dough, even Congress will take notice. Modeling manhood, sculpting America's metropolitan skylines and just flat-out making mega-money is an irresistible combination. Do you think that any of those sports dollars ever make it into Congressional campaign coffers? Any chance of that, d'y'think?

Don’t you people know its Hockey season??? Pfft on lying baseball players what are they going to do to him not much that’s for sure. Now the real question is will the Thrashers make the playoffs and get past round one this year!